Seven Roman Catholic women, along with two bishops not in
communion with Rome but claiming apostolic succession, attempted June 29 to
break through the debate in the Catholic church over womens ordination by
presenting a fait accompli: women validly ordained according to the Roman rite,
holding themselves out as priests.

The ordinations, conducted aboard a pleasure boat on
the Danube River between Germany and Austria, brought reprisals from church
authorities. According to a July 10 Vatican statement, the women must admit the
nullity of their claim to be priests by July 22, as well as ask forgiveness for
the scandal they have caused, or they will be excommunicated.

The event also touched off a debate within pro-womens
ordination circles over tactics and timing, over how far is too
far.

The women now identifying themselves as priests are: Germans Iris
Müller, Ida Raming, Gisela Forster and Pia Brunner; Austrians Christina
Mayr-Lumetzberger and School Sr. Adelinde Theresia Roitinger; and an
Austrian-born American who used the assumed name of Angela
White.

Reached at her home in Austria, Mayr-Lumetzberger told NCR
July 10 that while the women hope for dialogue with their bishops and with the
Vatican, they will not back down.

Our call comes from God, not from the Vatican,
Mayr-Lumetzberger said. We cannot say it is invalid.

The two men who performed the ordinations are 61-year-old
Argentine Romulo Braschi, a former Catholic priest who claims to have been made
bishop in 1999 by a retired Argentinian prelate, and former Benedictine monk
Ferdinand Regelsberger, who was ordained a bishop in May by Braschi.

Braschis claim to epsicopal status is disputed by church
authorities.

Neither man is today in communion with Rome. Braschi describes
himself as a bishop of the Catholic-Apostolic Church of Jesus the
King, which he founded in the 1970s. Braschi claims 250 followers in
Switzerland and Germany, though the Munich archdiocese put the number at 50. In
1996, Braschi launched the Charismatic-Oxala-Nana Union, devoted to
Afro-Argentinian nature religion. He is also said to have embraced
the Hindu doctrine of karma.

During the ceremony, which took place before some 200 friends,
family and supporters, Braschi acknowledged that he has no authority to perform
an ordination for the Roman Catholic church.

A third bishop, Dusan Spiner of the Czech Republic, was expected
to take part June 29 but did not arrive, apparently due to traffic. Spiner was
consecrated a bishop in secret during the communist era by the late Czech
Bishop Felix Davidek. During the era of Soviet persecution, the Czech bishops
had been given special permission to carry out ordinations without Roman
authorization in order to ensure the continuation of the hierarchy.

Davidek ordained a small number of women priests and deacons in
the 1960s, including Ludmila Javorova, who later emerged from the underground
and became a symbol for the womens ordination movement.

After the fall of communism, Spiner agreed not to function as a
priest and today serves as a parish priest in Slovakia. According to news
reports, Spiner ordained the seven women as deacons on Palm Sunday and had
promised to ordain them as priests.

Mayr-Lumetzberger told NCR that the women would ask the
Czech bishop to re-ordain them sub conditione, meaning in case the June
29 ordination was not valid.

Given that official Catholic doctrine holds that ordaining women
is impossible, church authorities have pointed out that the pedigree of the
bishop makes no difference in terms of validity.

Bishop Maximilian Aichern of Linz, in whose diocese
Mayr-Lumetzberger lives, said that with their act the women had put
themselves outside the Catholic church. A spokesperson for Cardinal
Friedrich Wetter of Munich called the event a sectarian spectacle
that had nothing to do with the Catholic church.

Cardinal Joachim Mesiner of Cologne said the project was absurd,
comparing a woman wanting to be a priest with a man wanting to give birth.
Roitinger told reporters that she has been threatened with expulsion from her
religious order, the School Sisters of Hallein.

The June 29 action split opinion even among supporters of
womens ordination. Some believe it a prophetic challenge to injustice,
while others see it as an unconstructive provocation.

The Austrian branch of the We Are Church reform group, the Church
from Below movement in Germany, the Womens Ordination Catholic Internet
Library Web site and the New Wine movement in England all discouraged the June
29 event.

The Womens Ordination Catholic Internet Library said it
opposed the move because church unity is a great value that should be
preserved at all costs, and because such action, though drawing
attention to the issue of womens ordination, may not help to bring the
whole Catholic community to the acceptance of women priests.

On the other hand, delegates from the U.S.-based Womens
Ordination Conference and the Canadian Catholic Network for Womens
Equality were on hand June 29 to offer support.

Andrea Johnson, who represented the conference June 29, told
NCR that she sees the ordinations as a model for similar
action in the United States.

Up to four American women were planning at one point to take part
in the June 29 ceremony, but later backed out because they did not adequately
feel part of the local community. Several, however, hope to go forward with
similar action in the United States.

Carol Crowley, one of the American women who decided not to go
through with ordination this time, said she was looking forward to doing
something similar back home.

Some say Next year in Jerusalem!  Crowley
said. But I say, Next year in the United States! 

John L. Allen Jr. is NCR Rome correspondent. His e-mail
address is jallen@natcath.org